Can you lose your crown if you do not follow a fraudulent church leader who claims he has the proper Philadelphia-style church government, whatever the hell that is? Of the many heresies of Armstrongism, the adherence to so-called "proper" church government has been the most destructive to the church. This is what has allowed abusive self-appointed frauds to set themselves up as "true" church leaders who are here to save everything Herbert taught.
Church government created by Herbert is a tool to keep members in line and afraid to ask questions. If you dare to ask a question of the dear leader, you are being rebellious and, therefore, a sinner bound for the lake of fire. Church government is what has allowed spiritual abusers like Dave Pack, Ron Weinland, Gerald Flurry, and Bob Thiel to run amok, damaging people's lives and claiming that God has set them apart as an end time witness to the church and the world. This also allows them to say outrageous things that have no relevance to a Christians daily walk. No one needs the dreams, revelations or brain farts these guys dish out on an hourly basis.
Notice this appalling nonsense from the Great Bwana Bob. He is currently going through the book of Hebrews, verse by verse, and adding his two cents to its meanings. I can't think of anything more boring than to have Bwana Bob extrapolate on scripture that he knows nothing about. Sadly, if you are a bad little boy or girl and do not heed his Phialdphian teachings, then prepare to get nice and toasty in the lake of fire.
This sermon is the sixth part of a six-part sermon series covering each and every verse of the Book of Hebrews. This sermon covers the 13th chapter. Dr. Thiel begins by reading some comments from the late Herbert W. Armstrong. Dr. Thiel covers each verse of the thirteenth chapter of Hebrews in this sermon. He discusses that Philadelphia was to continue and that one man hierarchical governance is what true Philadelphians should Christians accept. He also warns about the trickery of men and that proper church governance helps prevent people from losing the Philadelphian crown. Dr. Thiel discusses what Jesus has been doing and how He looks. He exhorts people to do good and to endure to the end and explains about God’s plan of increasing love throughout eternity.
17 comments:
Why the emphasis on a zero like Bob?
Bob did not accept this teaching when Rod Meredith taught it to Bob. Why then should you or I accept this teaching when Bob teaches it to us?
You are correct! Bob has been an egregious rebellious man and has been in outright rebellion against the very government he seeks to promote.
My goodness. A quick read of the above comments by Thiel should set off alarm bells ringing in one’s ears. As others have mentioned his own rebellion against church ‘government’ surely disqualifies him from any post within the church. You can’t have it both ways Bob.
He left in rebellion from the church to join the blasphemous Global Church of God and then bitchslapped McNair to join up with Meredith to form LCG. Then he left in a rebellious hissy fit to start his own group. He cannot be trusted at all. There is a reason no Church of God ever ordained him. In fact, they all REFUSED to ordain him due to his rotten self-righteous attitude.
In the fields of entertainment and sports, there is a saying. You really don't want to meet and get to know your idols. It is likely that you would become very disillusioned. Of course there are occasionally some nice ones who are universally liked.
My experience with Armstrongite ministers has been that sometimes even the ones who exuded an endearing or loving personality while giving sermons were or are flaming assholes. It is possible to exercise authority in a loving and tactful manner, but most of the WCG/ACOG ministry took the rod of iron concept too seriously, and too far. The system ended up corrupting them
Instead of practicing the iron sharpens iron approach, they tried to rule with the “rod of iron”. They used their concept of government to attempt to be like mini dictators trying to lord it over people. They put the cart before the horse.
Wow, what would we do if we didnt have "Dr. Booby and him Crucified" to save us?? !
The idea of an Armstrongist “church” government is mythology. Armstrongism a collection of small denominations. Each one has a denominational government of some form – probably a single leader and a tiered authoritarian structure. I am not up on what is current in Splinterdom.
In the First Century, there was a single church and, nearly so, a single theology. Some would say that there is a nuanced difference between Paul and James. I would grant that even though I consider it to be a tempest in a teapot. We do not have that First Century consistency now. We have many churches in the Christian movement broadly, each with a denominational government and rules of governance and a set of organizational leaders. This same model is repeated within the boundaries of Armstrongism. This model can only be altered, for sake of argument, if one of the denominations just happens to be the one and only true church. It is not just a denomination but the undeniable church proper. And, then, its government would be the true government of the true church.
This ideal singularity does not exist either in the Christian movement or among the little Armstrongist denominations. The one and only true church idea among Armstrongists can be fiercely talked up but it cannot be demonstrated. In the Christian movement most everyone is comfortable with the idea that the true church has a number of denominational expressions. That is not so among Armstrongists who insist that there is such a true church and along with this insist that it is none other than the particular denomination to which they belong. This also means that all the other Armstrongist denominations are imposter organizations with imposter leadership who are, very importantly, stealing the tithe base.
This could be resolved among Armstrongists if their leaders all sat down in a conclave and determined by some set of “generally accepted accounting principles” who is the true church. First, if two Armstrongist denominations believe the same thing, they should merge so as to eliminate costly redundancy. The remaining combatants can then duel to the death over what should be salient issues. I think you can see that this will never happen. The True Church, as formulated in Armstrongism, will forever remain chimerical. Like the fountain of youth, storied about but never discovered. And to outside observers, like me, this internecine bellicosity will seem unwarranted considering that the little denominations already seem to have all made the same errors. Who cares where they are right.
Scout
A relevant point of theodicy if anyone cares to take it on. I don't. If Armstrongism is so harmful, why does God permit to exist?
Scout
Right on Scout. The things that divide "Armstrongism" are the same that plague all movements of this world system: the love of money, power and control, and who is the greatest! Scripture emphatically addresses all these points.
@Anon 6:11. I believe Black Sabbath once wrote a song about Bob called Zero the Hero. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rirXwTPFeV8
Yes it does continue to exist sadly. Yet I believe many also came to faith in Jesus Christ within this movement. And have embraced the freedom that comes with this. And have left and now live new lives, free from the shackles of Armstrongism. Are whose who died within the this cog movement unsaved? I well remember many friends and associates within wwcog who passed away, even before the church started to fracture. Lovely people who were in no doubt believers in Christ yet also sincerely believed in such flawed doctrines as BI etc etc. They are not lost, but I yearn for the day when this movement disappears.Good observations of yours, thanks.
1) He puts out so much badly written diarrhea-in-text that he's an easy target. Low hanging fruit, really.
2) His titanic ego and subsequent need to rewrite reality in his own eyes to support that ego screams out of all his badly written diarrhea-in-text, and it's funny.
3) Unlike HWA and many of his imitators, Bob is not smart enough or wily enough to carefully craft an appeal that elevates and creates a demand for his product. He just assembles piecemeal garbage from questionable sources and tells himself he's doing something useful.
4) He often cries whenever NO2HWA pokes at him, which is also funny.
5) He still hasn't responded to Richard's challenge to discuss the issue on here, and he probably won't, as he won't be able to delete comments to try to make himself look respected.
The church government want to steal your crown byacting as a presumptuous middle man taking away agency from the individual.
Right on, BP8, which is Arabic for, "Gosh! It's actually Armstrongism that is worldly churches led by Christian falsely-so-called leaders!"
BB
People run from one form of church governance structure to another as 'headless chicken's'. But the solution is never really found, some forms of church governance are less problematic than others but humans are humans.
If the leader or governance structure is not inspired by God, nor has faith in the actual churches beliefs, then everything is flawed and it'll only be a matter of time before all the walls fall down.
Post a Comment